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Why Must BuzzFeed Turn The Internet Into A House Of Lies?

January 17, 2013

Back in December, the Daily Caller’s Jim Treacher had the audacity to ask for a medical report detailing Hillary Clinton’s concussion which conveniently occurred right before she was supposed to testify on what happened in Benghazi.

Jim Treacher didn’t call it a hoax, he was merely practicing journalistic skepticism, a concept which used to be valued by liberals. For this, he was immediately attacked by BuzzFeed which tried to paint him as some sort of truther. BuzzFeed blogger Andrew Kaczynski rushed to Clinton’s defense and twisted Jim Treacher’s words with this:

To this day, neither Kaczynski nor BuzzFeed has offered Jim Treacher any correction or apology.

I try to be understanding. I do. As much as the media is faltering, the online media isn’t exactly a cash-cow either. It’s a highly competitive environment, and hit-whoring — splashily overstated and linkable stories — are a fact of life.

It’s a bit like the comic book industry’s attempt to Hype its way out of an industry-wide collapse in the late nineties. Everything is a stunt, everything is grabby. Spiderman dies! Alternate covers. Hologram covers! Gold leaf covers. In this issue, with six alternate covers including one gold-leaf hologram cover, Spiderman dies. Can’t. Miss. Issue!

But there’s a downside to that sort of Spike Sales thinking. When everything is calculated to Spike Hits, it begins to sound like carnival barking. And carnival barking tends to be — get this — dishonest. And people start noticing that.

Perhaps BuzzFeed should hire someone to handle corrections and apologies.